I got so many IMs after I first logged on that I finally decided to write down some of my thoughts on A-Cen here so I could just give a link and be done with it, rather than explaining every little thing to everyone. I might take some of this and turn it into a review sort of thingiemabobber and make a section for Hammerspace on my few con experiences ... oh, that reminds me. Tomorrow I have doodles to scan for Hammerspace. I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to get these rolls of film developed, but when I do I'll let you know.

Let's see ...

We left school at about three-thirty on Thursday afternoon, with Christy driving and me (having called shotgun months in advance) sleeping the drive away as usual in the front. (I don't know why, but something about car rides puts me to sleep faster than anything else that I know of.) Sarah sat in the back with the food, but it was intact as far as I knew when we arrived at Christy's house to spend the night.

(Whereupon I discovered that not only did Christy have a SNES and some of my favorite games, but she had Inu-Yasha manga!! I finished volume eight.)

Now, a random note on our food situation. I had brought the same things that had offered me sufficient sustenance last year, namely - peanut butter, bread, juice boxes, and Cheezits. Christy's mother took one look at our supply store and promptly took us out to buy groceries, meaning that we had such an adequately stocked pantry, we didn't even finish it all by the end of the con. (We even had turkey!)

EtoileEyes was flying in from far away, and we were planning to meet up with her somewhere between nine and ten in the main lobby. As I stood in the preregistration line less than five minutes into the con, I realized that she was standing right in front of me. Whoo!

We checked in without problem, although (as usual) the elevators were a source of congestion. On the whole, it was a very nice hotel (though I think people disregarded the no-smoking areas, which was kind of irritating). The elevators (when you finally got into them) were nifty - glass! It reminded me of riding the elevators up and down and up and down again when I was really little.

We wandered around for awhile, waiting. We spent a lot of time waiting. EtoileEyes and I have decided that we're going to have an art table next year. If some of these folks can do it, so can we!

We attended all three rounds of Iron Guest this year, which in my opinion is one of A-Cen's best features. The first match was hilarious (the theme was marriage), the second was torturous (the theme was Miyazaki, and Piro should have won dammit!!), and the third evenly-matched (kaiji - something like that - or big monster Godzilla-type things was the theme of the hour). I really enjoyed Iron Guest as always.

I wound up not attending the Masquerade. There was a good deal of confusion about waiting lines when I was first thinking about going, and I would have gone from the beginning of the blob I was in to the end of the line outside the con center. In addition, the staffers seemed rather frazzled, and I was having a phenomenally hard time hearing what they were shouting at us. I was worried that they would be irritated that I had not moved as they wished and yell at me, which is done unawares of circumstances on their part and scares me. (Speaking of, I did have one encounter with a rude staff member ... he probably didn't mean to be rude, but it came across offensively. I didn't know things down that end of the hallway were closed ...) So I decided not to wait, and Christy and I went and watched music videos ... there were some cool ones and some ok ones ... I think the Army of Darkness parody was the best. XD I also liked the Rurouni Kenshin OAV one that was set to "This is my December," or something like that.

There was also this really cool idea that somebody had to stretch out long pieces of paper across the floor and give us all crayons!! I spent some time doodling there, and I even got complimented for my junk. Some guys gave me a new description of my stuff - "3D Shoujo" - as I had happened to be drawing in blues, teals, and ... pink. I drew myself and my con philosophy - "I either need less sugar or more sleep."

Another great feature of A-Cen is the people, really. Sure, there are some jerks and some hormonal idiots, but there are a lot of nice folks there, and some of them are very open, which at times is a nice quality. When I was drawing, a girl just spontaneously started talking to me, and a guy even told me about some things going on in his life. A dealer in the dealer's room even did that too. It was kind of nice. I guess as anime fans, we're all siblings of a sort.

Let's see ... what else ...

I cosplayed on Saturday. Was remarkably unsuccessful as usual, if you define success by people taking pictures and such. I felt pretty at times in my costume ... and I loved my skirt. My shoes were comfy too! But only two people recognized me/asked me for a picture ... and as usual, Kevin Lilliard of A Fan's View was nowhere to be seen while I was in costume. (I seem to have a natural knack for missing that man when in costume). Of course, we found him sitting alone with camera and computer after I had changed out of costume.

Oh! Kareoke. (I was doodling a lot, and one guy even came up to me and complimented me on my work. I was going to scrap the doodle but in honor of him and his boldness and the gratitude of my ego, I guess I'll scan it. hehe) EtoileEyes went and sat in on the kareoke for a long time, and it has reformed my way of thinking about it. From now on, if someone tells me that they are tone-deaf, I will believe them.

Also, I noticed this year that sometimes these guys would just stare at me for a long time. Wierd.

Oh. Oh. I can't forget to tell you folks about the who Christy so lovingly termed as my "stalker." It was kind of scary. I won't mention too many details, but I'm sure that if he comes across my journal (gak) he'll be able to recognize himself.

I had met him last year at the con, but had mostly forgotten about him until a group that he's involved in started making some talk on the A-Cen mailing list. On Friday, not even several hours into the con, I ran into him again - coincidentally wearing the exact same shirt as I had worn when I first encountered him - and as it turns out, he hadn't forgotten me.

On Saturday, as my group and I were walking out of the dealer's room, they stopped me and turned me around to one of the tables in Artist's Alley, where he sat. He had been calling out to me apparently, but as I'm partially deaf and the background noise was pretty bad, I didn't hear him at all.

There's one thing that I really despise about flirting, and that is that the guy involved always seems to have an affinity towards dropping his voice in some pseudo-conspiratorial manner, meaning that I can't hear what the hell he's saying and am left either guessing or attempting to give my best non-committal response. And oh, did he try to flirt with me. Talking about himself in the third person, even.

He made me sign up for a mailing list ... I didn't really want to, but I didn't want to be impolite, so I put down one address out of ten. He then tried to get me to put something by my name, but I couldn't hear him so I didn't do it. He put a star by my name and said something about "because I like you," and "'cause you're the girl who's going to eat dinner with me tonight," or something. Eeek. So basically he asked me out.

I fled. Eek. Eek. Not cool. Why is it that males seem to interpret politeness as an acceptance of their interest? Blah.

Even more coincidentally, I think that the room he was staying in was right below ours.

Hmm ... it's getting late, I should go. What else can I talk about? I sure hope LJ doesn't have length limits on these things. Oh!!! I know. I did achieve one of my goals this year, which was to walk away with soundtracks (note the plural). I now own the soundtracks for Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust, the Rurouni Kenshin OAVs, and Trigun: The First Donuts. I also got a set of really, really adorable Inu-Yasha keychains, a rather ugly Link plushie (I swear to God that his foot is sewn on backwards), one Ayashi no Ceres DVD, and two Rurouni Kenshin DVDs ... I got some Pocky, but I ate it all on Saturday and was too broke by that point to buy more.